


a winter's ball // satisfied

by bluecarrot



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: A Winter's Ball, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-18 06:27:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9372263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: -- what if Hamilton meant something else by "You strike me as a woman who's never been satisfied"? What if he knew about Angelica and Aaron Burr?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written 17 January 2017.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter him, aaron, to her angelica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 17 Jan 2017.

* * *

"Marry me," he said: and Angelica laughed.

She was quiet even in her laughter. She knew when to hold back, when to let go, and the noise of the dance would cover up their noises -- she hoped -- but still. Quiet. Careful.  So her laugh was more of a snort.

Burr understood, anyway. She thought they understood each other quite well. But maybe she was wrong, because he gasped into her ear and said "Please, Angie?" and she bore down and he whined and said "Stop that, you'll push me over the edge. You don't want me to come inside you."

He was right enough about that. She wouldn't risk pregnancy.

His movements weren't quite enough, she wanted something different tonight, more than her head knocking against the wall in an alcove. Burr was always careful and sometimes that was so  _boring_ \--

"You're lucky I'm not a man," she said.

"Indeed, I agre. But why do you say so?" His hand snaked between their bodies, found the spot of their joining, stroked her and made her shudder and clench again, not deliberately this time, while he said "Shhhh. Shhh. Not yet."

"This afternoon. On the street."

"I'm not allowed to say hello to a pretty girl?" He bit her nipple through the dress; he was beginning to move again.

Angelica swatted his arm. How could she explain a bite-mark on her good silk? "Behave yourself! And no, you can't come at me on the street -- not while I'm with Peggy and Eliza. You know that."

He was playing with her again, flicking his finger, eyes shut as he moved in her body.

She dug nails into his shoulder. "God. There. But you have got to stay away from  me."

"Or what, Miss Schuyler?"

She made a face. "Don't call me that."

"I'd prefer Mrs Burr." He bottomed out in her, quick-moving, and she bit her lip.  Any moment now he'd withdraw entirely. She wanted him to do it. She didn't want him to do it. "Aaron."

He swore at her ("Don't call me that name!") and shivered and pulled out in time, kissing her hard as he finished.

Then he dropped to his knees and finished her, too.

 

The packed room gave some excuse for her flushed cheeks when they (separately) made it back to the ball.

She easily found wallflower Eliza and with more difficulty spotted Peggy's bright cheerful dress among a knot of men, and she was careful not to notice when Burr came in, acting slightly drunk. They barely knew each other. She hated him. Et cetera. But they ended up in the same group and when someone mentioned Thomas Paine, she automatically looked over.

Burr wasn't looking at her. Not in any obvious way. Only a tiny smile around the edge of his mouth said anything about Angelica, and it wasn't legible to anyone else.

 

Their first conversation had been an argument. She ought to have known the future from the present. She ought at least to have backed away when he moved closer; to have dropped her eyes instead of looking directly back. 

She ought at least to have pretended she was frivolous and ignorant.

She couldn't do any of those things.

And the third time they'd met she reached for a book at the same time he did and their fingers brushed and (she blushed to think of it) instead of apologizing she rubbed her thumb against his, and he drew in his breath in a way she recognized -- she did it herself that way, late late at night, with the prone still bodies of her sisters asleep nearby. Her own hand creeping downwards. Pretending it was someone else's hand.  _Mr Burr._

"My apologies," he said with his mouth, and underneath it she heard him say he wasn't sorry at all, his only regret was not going even further. Finishing what they'd started.

They had already started.

Kissing him was an acknowledgment of what they knew; when his hand slipped in between her legs and his voice said "My god!" she found that -- contrary to what she'd been taught -- there was nothing to fight here. Their desire was mutual, and everything had been decided with that first glance.

 

It was her role as eldest (and therefore most eligible) sister to circulate the room. It was no hardship. Burr was off somewhere flirting. She could do that herself. Why not.

But her feet wouldn't obey.

She held on to a glass of punch and stared out.

"You strike me," someone said, "as a woman who's never been satisfied."

He was uncomfortably close, and his smile was overly-familiar, too.

Angelica frowned. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."  _Marry me,_ and Burr wiping his mouth before he kissed her because she hated the taste of herself, and --

"Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton. And I've never been satisfied."

So it hadn't been an insinnuation -- but as she turned fully to take his hand and curtsey and she saw his eyes and, yes, it had been, and he knew he'd overstepped, and he was apologizing for doing it in public.

That was not the same thing as apologizing in general. And she didn't recognize the name. "Where's your family from?"

"Not important," he said, and kept on talking. He wouldn't let go of her hand -- less posessive and more like he'd forgotten to do it.

Penniless, powerless, and presuming.

Also beautiful. And clever. And a soldier.

"Have you met my sister?" she said, because he so clearly had not, and pointed out Eliza.

He considered. "I was more interested in you."

Of course. She was the eldest, the inheritor, --

"I've heard such things," and because his voice was calm and his expression neutral, her heart sank. So she had missed his meaning, after all.  Goddamn that Burr, how _dare_ he talk --

"My sister," and she curtsied, and left them alone, Hamilton saying to Betsey "If it takes fighting a war for us to meet --"

And here she was again trying to cool her heated cheeks, and now trying to fight back a stinging in her eyes.

 

Later she realized she'd been stupid. Burr hadn't talked. Burr would never talk. He wouldn't risk what they had for some brag, that wasn't like his caution.

So Alexander knew some other way. (How? _How_?)

Late at night, with the dawn drawing light across the treetops, Angelica considered that blaming Burr was her first thought. 

That mattered, too.

 

She let him kiss her neck and her breasts and work his way downward; she liked him on top of her, the pressure of him and the scent of his skin and his noises, his increasing helplessness as he grew lost in the pleasure. She thought, sometimes, that she liked the pleasure as much as she liked Burr himself. And wouldn't _that_ be convenient if she could get this from any man?

 _Hamilton_ , she thought. And tentatively: _Alexander_.

Would he feel different inside her skin? Would he move harder or more carefully? Would he wrap his hand around her thigh like that, would he -- _god_  -- would he --

She came first -- and then Burr came -- and then Angelica again, with his mouth on her neck and his thumb against her. She pushed him away and sat up against the wall, trying to catch her breath. It was difficult to return to earth; her senses came back slowly, sight and sound and then the ability to speak.

Burr was smiling and prone. He still hadn't opened his eyes. He said: "Marry me, Angelica."

She looked around the room. It was so familiar and she felt like she'd never seen it before. The what-not in the corner; the shelf and books; the andirons and fire-screen with its painted sprig of flowers. Eliza had done that, and she was a very indifferent artist. "You don't want to marry me. You're only saying that because we just ... we just ..."

He grinned at her. "What did we just do? Can you say it?"

"Don't you tease me."

"But you like it."

"Stop it, Burr. You don't want to marry me and I certainly ..."

"I do." He sat up, folding his legs underneath; she envied his calm grace. "And you would too, if you thought about it."

Angelica made a face. "I have thought about it."

"So? Why all the negativity, Miss? I meet your criteria. I'm wealthy," and he ticked it off on his fingers, "and I'm desperately intelligent. I love your intelligence, Angie. I'll never tell you to stop reading newspapers or stay away from rallies for fear you'll be hurt. I --"

"You're a soldier."

"So? You love it. You think my uniform is dashing. All ladies do. It's why I enlisted."

"Speaking of soldiers. Did you tell that man -- that Hamilton," casually, as if she'd half-forgotten his name, "about this?" _Us_ , she meant, but she wouldn't give them the honor of the name. There was no Them.

He frowned. "Hamilton? Why would I say anything to him? And of course I didn't. Do you think I have a wagging tongue?"

"He said something. At the ball." She couldn't remember exactly what he'd said -- except that she had known exactly what he meant.

"Of course I didn't," he said again. "Is that why you're refusing me?" And he was serious now, unsmiling, eyes dark and luminous.

"No." She cleared her throat. "That isn't why. But you know I won't, and you need to stop asking."

"Tell me why."

She had to look away from those eyes. "We're too alike, Burr. I'd fall in love with you, and then -- it would be like falling in love with a riverbed. Or the moon. What would I do when summer came, and all the water dried away? What would I do when you hid your face? You can't give me all of yourself, and you wouldn't want all of me."

"You don't want a man who holds you down."

"No. I don't. But you -- you'd deliberately set me free, and doesn't that mean you could pull me back if you wanted to do it? I need someone who doesn't even know anything is missing." She searched his face. "Tell me you understand."

"Go on."

"And you're a soldier. I can't wait all my life for you to come home, Aaron. What if you don't?"

"Don't call me that," he snapped, and started to button up his trousers. "After all this time --"

"You can't tell me you really believed we'd end up together."

Burr had his head down, focusing on buttoning; he took his time over it. He finally said: "No. I didn't. But I thought it would happen because we didn't enjoy each other's company."

"Burr," she said. "Don't be angry."

He stood up and caught her face and kissed her, hard. "That was more than enough conversation, Miss Schuyler. I think I liked it better when we didn't talk at all."


	2. Chapter 2

Burr was a masochist; he'd always known it. So when a not-as-drunk-as-he-was-pretending-to-be Alexander Hamilton asked him to his wedding, Burr accepted. And he showed up. True, he was late, but he was there.

He was late because he'd visited a prostitute before.

He showed up because he wanted to see Angelica again.

He did not examine either one of these urges too closely. He didn't need to. He'd done that enough, turning them over and over and finding no end to the searching, until at last he gave up and gave in and gave himself what he needed.

Alex was again pretending to drunk, thought Burr, but his friends actually were sloshed. That lanky Frenchman who pretended not to understand Burr's French, and the dimwitted, self-righteous Laurens -- he was so clearly fucking or had been fucking or wanted to fuck Hamilton that Burr felt almost empathetic. How terrible it would be to care about Alex in that way.

As Hamilton pressed against him in sloppy greeting, he considered that maybe it was a mistake to care about Alex at all.

"Burrrrr! You showed!"

"For sure." He politely disengaged from the sweaty arm. "Wouldn't miss it."

"Where've you been, Burr? You smell like sex, Burr," said Alex, in a stage-whisper. Probably he meant it to be quiet. Maybe he really was drunk.

"I'm surprised you don't. Saving yourself for the wedding night?"

Alex straightened, eyes narrowing. "She's a good girl. Don't you go defaming my Betsey."

"Couldn't persuade her? That's not like you, Hamilton. And here I thought you had a silver tongue." He glanced at Laurens in time to catch his tell-tale flinch.

"She's a good girl," Alex said again. "Not like the rest of 'em. Not like whomever you've got, eh? Who've you got, Burr?"

Burr unwrapped the arm again, less politely this time. Jesus, Hamilton was a goddamn octopus. "I haven't got anyone."

"That's right," said Lafayette. "Keep it in the family."

Impossible to misunderstand that.

Impossible to let Angelica take the fallout.

He hesitated, to make his relationship seem were more of a secret than it really was. He looked over at Lafayette and Laurens and Mulligan (he'd always rather liked Hercules).

He admitted: "She's married."

"Married! Burr, you soundrel. But I knew you had it in you. Under that cold exterior beats the heart of a devout and constant lover." Alex-the-octopus had an arm around him again and was rubbing his chest now too, for emphasis. "A lover, Burr. But you should have brought her with you. We should meet her."

"I wish I could," he said, and the strange pain that came with it meant he was unexpectedly telling the truth. Had he actually fallen in love with Theodosia?

He put that aside to examine later. "Her husband might not like it."

"Husbands, pfft," said Hamilton. "Husbands don't matter" -- apparently disregarding his recent entrance into that hallowed group.

"This one might. He's fighting in Georgia." Burr could feel Laurens watching him. Jealousy, he thought again, because Alex was smiling up at him, looking flushed and sweet and precious. It was a lie. Alex was a snake. And he was all the more dangerous because he considered himself a sort of knight.

No wonder Angelica liked him. No wonder, he thought, that she gave him to her sister. No fool, that girl.

Hamilton ground up a little on Burr's hip and all but purred. "Even better, if he's out of the way."

Burr smiled. "He's on the British side."

\-- And he was close enough, and Alex had drank enough, for him to permit an unguarded flash of emotion to cross his face: it was re-evaluation. He finally considered Burr formidable.

A tactical error, maybe, on Burr's part: but the alternative was to expose Angelica.

He let them tease him for a few minutes more and excused himself ...

 

He was walking with Theodosia, then; the street was busy and dusty and the day was warm and when she wanted to go into a shop, he agreed. The door shut behind them -- it was no cooler inside -- and in the minute it took for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, he heard a familiar throat clear.

Impossible. At the least, _unlikely_. But there she was.

"Miss Schuyler," he began, and corrected himself: "Pardon, I mean Mrs. Church."

Angelica was very, very still; she looked, he thought, horrified. It was vexing. Did she not trust him -- after all this time?

"Mr Burr," she said.

Theo had wandered away, looking at ribbons or some such; Burr saw her look up and glance from one to the other, with that quick-discerning gaze. He'd cursed it before and he did so again, silently.

Angelica did not see or did not pay attention to the other woman. She sought and found her husband.

Burr hadn't ever put out the bother of meeting him, this John Church. Which items did he match from Angelica's list? Not a soldier -- check -- monied -- well, Burr thought. That much was obvious. He was looking around with a studied boredom.

He was good-looking, too. The fucker.

Not that Burr cared.

She was taking his arm, saying something to him in a low aside -- presumably not "darling, I want you to meet Aaron Burr; we were lovers for a few months" -- and

 

 

 

Angelica dropped a curtsey. "Sir."

Burr bowed. "Mrs Church."

\-- and there seemed to be nothing more to say; she collected her dignity and her husband's arm and they were off again, walking rapidly down the street.

Burr glanced at their retreating backs and returned to examining gloves.

Theodosia spoke to the display case. "When did you fuck her?"

The clerk looked them up and down; he looked hot.

"I haven't had an affair since you and I ... since I met you."

"Oh, I know that," she said, to the glass.

Impossible to tell if she was amused or angry, petulant or in pain -- Theo was always marvelous at tempering her voice -- but her eyes spoke what she tried to hide. They were dark and expressive and deep-set, giving her the look of someone who habitually stayed awake, burning midnight oil.

Well -- it was true that Burr liked to keep her awake, although he did not require lighting.

Her chin was tucked in and one hand pressed to her side, as if it pained her; she wouldn't look him in the face.

"I am yours," he said. "Always."

"I know that, too. You're avoiding the question, A-dot-Burr."

The day was so warm. Had it been so warm ten minutes ago? He watched the clerk, studiously not watching them, and requested to see something that needed to be fetched from the back room. Not a very subtle ploy, but he didn't care, and it worked: the young man left and Theo turned to him finally, and he could see the stillness in her face.

"I don't want you ever to look at me like that," he said. "It was a long while ago. Two years, or more."

"She cares about you."

"She married someone else."

"So you did offer? That's interesting. I wonder why she turned you down?"

Burr made a face. "She didn't want to marry a soldier."

Theo thought that was very funny. "Neither did I. You see how well that worked out."

"When your husband comes home," Burr started, and then had to make a show of rudeness: the clerk returned and was promptly  
sent again on his way.

"You'll -- what? Call him out in a duel? Be sensible, please."

"I find it surprisingly difficult to be sensible around you."

"I know that. Indeed, you once went so far as to tell me I am the only woman you've ever loved. Absolutely irrational of you. Heart-stopping nonsense."

"Heart-stopping indeed, but true for all that."

They left, stepping out from the shade and into the sunlight.  Theo was adjusting the ribbons on her bonnet, fiddling with them.

He wanted to kiss her and could not. "I didn't love her."

"You asked to marry her."

"Repeatedly," he said, and laughed. "Almost as often as I've asked you."

"And after the same event, I'd imagine. You men are very predictable."

"The circumstances were similar, although that particular consummation still lies in our future."

Theo took his arm. "I say it again: all men are the same. Give you a little bit of pleasure and you'll place bets it will be that way forever." But she was smiling, she let him draw her nearer.

"I didn't love her then," he said. "I don't want her now. I want you. I love -- I adore you. I have been in love with you since the first night we met. Irrationally in love. Intemperately, desperately, permanently in love. You do know that?"

"Mmm."

"And when your husband comes back, I'll tell him so."

"Meanwhile," said she, "we shall hope your dramatics will not be required. The world is vast and interesting, you know, and full of possibilities. We shall hope for the best. Perhaps _someone else_ will shoot him."


End file.
